HHS Asks Congress for Funds to Fight Medicare, Medicaid Fraud

The Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general told lawmakers on Tuesday that her office declines investigating “300 to 400 viable fraud cases” involving Medicare and Medicaid each year “because we don’t have the agents to work them.”

“We’re struggling to keep up,” Christi Grimm testified during a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee hearing on improper payments in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Both programs provide health insurance for the elderly, those with disabilities, and low-income Americans.

“We’re unable to keep pace with the health-care industry that has ballooned to one-fifth of the economy,” Grimm added. “The vast sums of ...